1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for multicomputer system management.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer system management requires information about computer components and network components, the state of each of those items, and their relationships. This information may include discovery of networks, network paths, computers, operating systems, file systems, network cards, installed applications, application components, user transactions, statistics of usage, and other information.
There are many different approaches for discovering and retrieving portions of this information from a computer network and its components and for making this information available to clients. The most common approaches are discipline-specific, domain-specific, or single-host-specific. An example of a discipline-specific approach is the gathering of monitoring and availability information for action upon that information. An example of a domain-specific approach would be the management of J2EE™ resources, such as applications, modules, servlets, EJBs, etc., which is defined within Java™ Specification Request (JSR) 77, the Java™ 2 Platform Enterprise Edition Management Specification. An example of a single-host-specific approach which enables the retrieval of information regarding a computer running the Microsoft™ Windows™ operating system is Microsoft™'s Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
However, choosing only one of these approaches is insufficient to identify and/or solve some of today's complex system management problems. Furthermore, implementations of each of these approaches typically make their discovered information available in a proprietary manner. For example, a system administrator would have difficulty in finding the root cause of a problem in a multi-host, multi-disclipine, multi-domain environment in which each approach exposes its information in a different manner and the relevant information comes from multiple hosts. Similarly, a system administrator would have difficulty in determining which hosts, their applications, and their users would be impacted when a particular host, operating system, application, file server, etc., becomes unavailable due to a crash or scheduled system maintenance.
One existing mechanism for exposing information from different domains in a common manner is through the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Common Information Model (CIM). Information is made available through the CIM model by a CIM Object Manager (CIMOM). A CIMOM can maintain information within its repository, and a CIMOM can also be extended with additional information by adding provider plug-ins. CIM has become a common denominator for instrumentation and relationships within the software industry. Significant CIM-based data is currently available to clients in a variety of operating system environments, e.g., Windows™, Solaris™, AIX™, OS/400™ and zOS™ platforms.
Clients can connect to a CIMOM and retrieve desired information. Clients can remotely access this information using the standard protocol that is defined within “DMTF CIM Operations Over HTTP”, Version 1.1, Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF), 6 Jan. 2003, e.g., in conjunction with the application programming interfaces (APIs) that are defined within “JSR (Java Specification Request) 48: WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise Management) Services Specification”, Sun Microsystems, 1 Mar. 2000. JSR 48 defines Java™ APIs for accessing CIM-based data from remote CIMOMs as well as an additional API for extending available CIMOM content with provider plug-ins.
However, there are shortfalls within the CIMOM architecture. Existing CIMOMs do not expose information from more than one host even if the hosts are of the same platform type. Existing CIMOMs also neither support nor manage relationships between more than one host. Moreover, existing CIMOMs do not support models that do not typically coexist or are at different schema levels. Examples of two models that are not found in the same CIMOM are Solaris™-specific and Windows™-specific CIM models. Examples of differing schema levels are the CIM version 2.7 and CIM version 2.8 schemas.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a system and a method that has the ability to integrate models and information from multiple types of approaches, hosts, and versions, including modeling and incorporating additional instrumentation as needed where it does not exist. It would also be advantageous to model, create, and manage cross-system and cross-domain relationships, particularly using a programmatic mechanism to expose the information to clients in a unified manner.